Training devices for muscle toning and/or developing, particularly for arm and shoulder muscles, have been provided in the past to varying degrees and myriad configurations. A plethora of such devices are stationary and unable to be easily transported by the user from one location to another. As such, these devices typically engender a weight system attached to a lifting mechanism provided within a rather large and bulky overall system or attached to a wall or other stationary implement, such as a bar (for instance, as in U.S. Pat. No. 4,974,836, to Hirsch). As well, other devices employ elastic cords and the like to provide resistance to a ball or like grip portion while a user moves the same in a pitching motion. Such devices, as well, do not include any manner of compensating for phenomena such as arc movement and centripetal forces as the stationary systems require a repetitive range of motions that rely upon the stationary basis of the device itself.
Other devices have allowed for free ranges of motions through their portability; however, such devices as well are limited in their allowance of the overall range of potential arc motions that are available the user over the entirety of his or her arms and/or shoulders. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,092,588, to DeLuca, provides a training device including a baseball gripping portion and an extension therefrom including a hammer component to allow for the user to act as if a ball is a hammer implement (rather than a device to require the user to undertake a throwing motion) with an extension including a blunt end to strike a targeted nail or dowel. In such a device, the resistance to the user is provided through the actual striking of the targeted surface. Such a device, however, is further limited by the rigidity of the extension as well as the relatively short length of such an extension, thereby limiting the overall effect available for the user, in combination with the hammer movement undertaken by the user. Similar devices have been proposed utilizing differing weighted portions of the extension (such as liquid containers, thereby permitting a different degree of momentum and torque on the throwing arm during use through the jerking movements of the liquid within the container and the various weights the user may add trough varying volumes of liquid therein), but still relying upon a short, inflexible extension arm at best (such as, at most 1.5 inches, or 3.81 centimeters, in length from the ball or grip portion to the weight portion). Such a device appears more relevant to providing a weighted object in conjunction with a user's hand for wrist exercises rather than total arm and/or shoulder treatments. Yet other devices, such as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,414,260, to Gust, accord a user the ability to swing a bat or racket with movable weights to different distances from the end point of the grip portion, but including a large and rigid extension portion between the grip and the weights. Such limited devices thus evince drawbacks as the possible muscle treatments that are available through their utilization are based on rigid formats, rather than flexible arcs that accord stronger, yet more even forces over the range of a user's arm and shoulder muscles during use.
To the contrary, the inventive device provides a unique and novel manner of toning and developing a user's arm and shoulder muscles through a greater degree of centripetal (and reactive centrifugal) forces. To date, no other device in the industry allows for the same level of muscle treatments.